To advance the Alliance of Civilizations, the UN Secretary-General established a High-level Group of eminent personalities and tasked this Group with generating a report containing an analysis of the rise in cross-cultural polarization and extremism and a set of practical recommendations to counter this phenomenon. The High-level Group met five times from November 2005 to November 2006, at the conclusion of which it produced a report which takes a multi-polar approach within which it prioritizes relations between Muslim and Western societies.

The report is structured in two parts: Part I presents an analysis of the global context and of the state of relations between Muslim and Western societies. It concludes with a set of policy recommendations, indicating the High-level Group's belief that certain political steps are pre-requisites to any substantial and lasting improvement in relations between Muslim and Western societies. Part II of the report reflects the High-level Group's view that tensions across cultures have spread beyond the political level into the hearts and minds of populations. To counter this trend, the Group analyzes and presents recommendations in each of four thematic areas: Education, Youth, Migration, and Media. The Report concludes with the High-level Group's suggestions for the implementation of its recommendations.

The Report of the High-level Group was presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and to Prime Ministers José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 13 November 2006 at the final meeting of the High-level Group in Istanbul, Turkey.

These Highlights were prepared by the Secretariat of the Alliance of Civilizations as part of the press release distributed announcing the report launch. This document does not constitute an Executive Summary of the report of the High-level Group.

The deliberations of the High-level Group were supported by research conducted or commissioned by a UN-based Secretariat of the Alliance of Civilizations. As part of this research, the Secretriat prepared thematic papers on the following subjects, reflecting the priorities established by the High-level Group: Education, Youth, Migration, and Media. The contents of these papers are not reflective of the High-level Group members' opinions or deliberations.